Margin and leverage are among the most important concepts to understand when trading forex. These essential tools allow forex traders to control trading positions that are substantially greater in size than would be the case without the use of these tools. At the most fundamental level, margin is the amount of money in a trader's account that is required as a deposit in order to open and maintain a leveraged trading position.
When scalping, traders tend to employ a leverage that starts at 50:1 and may go as high as 500:1. Knowing the effect of leveraging and the optimal leverage Forex trading ratio is vital for a successful trading strategy, as you never want to overtrade, but you always want to be able to squeeze the maximum out of potentially profitable trades. Usually a trader is advised to experiment with leverage within their strategy for a while, in order to find the most suitable one.
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If you are a rookie trader, you may find yourself asking questions such as 'what is leverage in Forex trading?' and 'how can it be useful?' This article will provide you with answers to these types of questions, together with, a detailed overview of Forex leveraging, its advantages and disadvantages, and a list of possible applications and restrictions.

Between 2003 and the end of 2004, the AUD/USD currency pair offered a positive yield spread of 2.5%. Although this may seem very small, the return would become 25% with the use of 10:1 leverage. During that same time, the Australian dollar also rallied from 56 cents to close at 80 cents against the U.S. dollar, which represented a 42% appreciation in the currency pair. This means that if you were in this trade – and many hedge funds at the time were – you would have not only earned the positive yield, but you would have also seen tremendous capital gains in your underlying investment.
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The use of leverage basically exacerbates any sort of market movements. As easily as it increases profits, it can just as quickly cause large losses. However, these losses can be capped through the use of stops. Furthermore, almost all forex brokers offer the protection of a margin watcher – a piece of software that watches your position 24 hours a day, five days per week and automatically liquidates it once margin requirements are breached. This process ensures that your account will never post a negative balance and your risk will be limited to the amount of money in your account.

In every foreign exchange transaction, you are simultaneously buying one currency and selling another. In effect, you are using the proceeds from the currency you sold to purchase the currency you are buying. Furthermore, every currency in the world comes attached with an interest rate set by the central bank of that currency's country. You are obligated to pay the interest on the currency that you have sold, but you also have the privilege of earning interest on the currency that you have bought. For example, let’s look at the New Zealand dollar/Japanese yen pair (NZD/JPY). Let’s assume that New Zealand has an interest rate of 8% and that Japan has an interest rate of 0.5% In the currency market, interest rates are calculated in basis points. A basis point is simply 1/100th of 1%. So, New Zealand rates are 800 basis points and Japanese rates are 50 basis points. If you decide to go long NZD/JPY you will earn 8% in annualized interest, but have to pay 0.5% for a net return of 7.5%, or 750 basis points.

Knowing where interest rates are headed is important in forex trading and requires a good understanding of the underlying economics of the country in question. Generally speaking, countries that are performing very well, with strong growth rates and increasing inflation will probably raise interest rates to tame inflation and control growth. On the flip side, countries that are facing difficult economic conditions ranging from a broad slowdown in demand to a full recession will consider the possibility of reducing interest rates.

Please support this idea with LIKE if you find it useful. Initiate Long. Entry - 1.03340 TP1 - 1.13378 TP2 - 1.20148 TP3 - 1.26684 SL - 1.00072 Reason: Despite I provide a Long position here, we should be ready to both breakouts, because of Triangles are not bullish/bearish patterns. First scenario is shown on the Chart in case the Resistance broken position...
The carry trade opportunity was also seen in USD/JPY in 2005. Between January and December of that year, the currency rallied from 102 to a high of 121.40 before ending at 117.80. This is equal to an appreciation from low to high of 19%, which was far more attractive than the 2.9% return in the S&P 500 during that same year. In addition, at the time, the interest rate spread between the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen averaged around 3.25%. Unleveraged, this means that a trader could have earned as much as 22.25% over the course of the year. Introduce 10:1 leverage, and that could be as much as 220% gain.

Good morning Traders! No change from our point of view, the pair developed the expected potential rally approaching the first resistance. That said, our idea still remains valid as shown in the previous analysis (see Part.2 below) and we would like to see a spike on the weekly chart (see Part 1 analysis). DAILY ANALYSIS (Part. 2) (click and play on chart...